Not really.
I posted earlier about how I really ought to go get a job, now that the kids are all in school. I even went so far as to check the McDonald's website, since I have no marketable skills except dog grooming, and I didn't really want to go back to that. I get pretty burned out on dog grooming.
Well, the vet I used to work for put an ad in the help-wanted section of the paper recently, and I saw it, and I contacted him, and now I'm the new morning kennel person. So no McDonald's. But, now, a bit of extra cash to cover all that stuff that seems to come up that's not in the budget. (Oldest Child, in college, really really wants to take a three-week class in Mexico next summer--not unreasonable since she's majoring in Spanish, but it costs four thousand dollars.)
Another thing not in our budget has been vet care on all our pets.
I have way too many pets, I admit it. I also tend to take in strays. One advantage of working for this particular vet is that he is generous about doing work on his employees' pets, including free vaccinations and surgeries (spays, teeth cleaning). I haven't wanted to scare anybody by admitting just how many pets we have, so I'm spacing them out so as not to look too greedy. I figure I'll take in one dog a month to get updated on shots, spaying, and so on. I already took in our fat pug mix, Baby, to get her (nasty) teeth cleaned and a fatty tumor removed. And we've picked up a stray, and I got it vaccinated.
Next month I'm taking Telemain in to get neutered.
Baby's surgery alone was estimated to cost $250 by the (different) vet who did her last vaccinations, which explains why I had been putting it off.
So here I am, getting up at five a.m. Fred gets the kids off to school, since I'm supposed to be at work at seven. It's not fun. I am regretting not managing our money better these past few years. If I had, I could be spending the time with them all in school doing other things . . . naps, hobbies, lunches out with Fred . . sigh.
Oh, well. It is a relief, knowing that the income has boosted and that I can quit trying to figure out how to get caught up on vet care.
I don't make much money from the "cleaning kennels" part of the job. There's something about being able to groom dogs, though. Not everyone can do it, and somehow, if you are remotely available to do it, you end up doing it.
Although supposedly this vet (we'll call him Dr. B) had two groomers when I went to work there to do kennels, it turned out that one was leaving immediately to have a baby. She'll be back sometime, but no one seems to know just when.
The other one (we'll call her B), as groomers do, sometimes wants short days and days off, so I have ended up doing some grooming after all.
So, the job I thought would last from about seven to eleven or twelve, is lasting from seven until one or two, by the time I groom a couple of dogs too. Hard to complain about that, though--grooming does, indeed, pay SO much better than an hourly wage for hosing down runs. I'd forgotten just how much more it does pay. B raised the grooming prices when she went to work for Dr. B, so it's better than when I was there before.
It's hard to let grooming go even if you decide you want to. You just can't get rid of it.
